Sad and Depressed

We are living in a time when much of the world (human and other-than-human) is in pain. The phrase tears of the world has been applied to this time. The first use of this phrase seems to be by Samuel Beckett, in his renowned play Waiting For Godot. In that play Beckett has a character stating that ‘The tears of the world are a constant quantity.’

In his 1976 song Tears of the World, George Harrison applies this phrase to seeing warfare and pollution yet ‘All warnings fall on deaf ears.’

If we notice this constant pain and observe the unheeded warnings then we may respond in a couple of ways: prolonged periods of depression and despair or brief, albeit intense, bouts of sadness.

Each of these possible reactions offer quite different psychological and responsive pathways. Etymology helps to illuminate the difference.

Depression has Latin roots and literally means to press down. The image of someone pressed down, their face in the mud, possibly a knee on their back illustrates depression. In such a situation the person finds it difficult to move. It is utterly disempowering. Despair has a different lineage yet ends with the same outcome. Old French gives us de (meaning without) and the second part of the word arrives from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word spes meaning prosperity. Hence despair applies to someone without prosperity which has come to mean without hope in our modern-day language. Again the image of a person pressed down in a hopeless situation comes to mind. Neither depression nor despair leave any room for an active response.

The word sad however has a far more intricate and interesting lineage. The PIE word seto (meaning to satisfy) became the word sæd in Old English and originally meant to be sated, to have ones full. It sounds like an unlikely ancestry for our modern word sad doesn’t it? Following the chain of changes in meaning is revealing. The Old English meaning morphed into firmly established, set, and hard in Middle English. These meanings in turn gave way to ponderous, heavy, and full (both physically and mentally) all of which implied a sense of weariness. By the 1300s seto, sæd, and sad had come to be identified with unhappy, sorrowful, melancholy, and mournful.

But, critically, even though it contains a heaviness the word sad never suggested being pressed down and without hope.

With this exploration of the lineage and meanings of depression and sad we can begin to piece together the different responses we have to the tears of the world that each provides us with.

Pressing us down and making us immobile, depression closes in on us and collapses our circle of concern inward. All our energy and attention becomes focussed upon ourselves and may cause us to implode and become self-destructive.

Periodic sadness, on the other hand, widens our circle of compassion and empathy, and we recognise that our pain and sadness connect us to our common humanity and intimacy with the totality of life on this planet.

In 2015 two of the most notable spiritual leaders on the planet, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, met in Dharamsala (the Dalai Lama’s Indian residence) to explore the meaning and expression of joy. The meeting was recorded and published as The Book of Joy.¹ During that meeting much attention was paid to the emotion of sadness. Archbishop Tutu argued that rather than viewing sadness as being a challenge to joy, ‘it often leads us most directly to empathy and compassion and to recognizing our need for one another.’ The Dalai Lama referred to psychological research which showed that those ‘in a sad mood had better judgment and memory, and were more motivated, more sensitive to social norms, and more generous than the happier control group.’

It was also noted that sadness often lingers longer than fear and anger and hence may provide a more lasting basis for acting with compassion.

So, the next time you feel tears begin to slide down your cheek for no apparent reason it may be that you are shedding the tears of the world and mirroring the pain of many upon this planet.

Use this time of sadness to listen to the messages those tears hold. They may contain and fortify your compassionate response.

Notes:

1. Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016